a couple of reality checks

Last week we were in a typical summer thunderstorm warning. High winds, chance of hail, heavy rain. (We have gotten lots of rain this year. With the addition of the 4.5 inches of rain that we got on Tuesday night, we've measured 27.5 inches of rain since mid-April!) We heard the tornado sirens go off in town (3 miles away) as we were sitting down to dinner. A friend called us and told us that he heard that a tornado was sighted east of us (and headed our way). We put on our shoes and got ready to head to the basement with our weather radio (which never mentioned anything about a tornado) but the sirens turned off so we just sat down to eat. Yesterday our neighbor, who lives 1.5 miles east of us, stopped by. Seems that tornado (which didn't touch down) did some damage on and around his property. In particular, he was offering us the chance to collect some firewood for the coming winter from several trees that were uprooted. (His house is ok, most damage was to trees and grain bins). We're grateful for the chance to get some firewood from nearby, but a little shaken to think that it was because a tornado was so close.

Yesterday, I was preparing dinner and the kids were playing downstairs. The girls often take Stephen to another room to play peek-a-boo with him, read him a book, or give him a toy to play with. When I noticed that the girls were both in the kitchen and Stephen was not, I asked Catherine to please see where he was. She didn't obey right away and a minute later I heard a thump, thump, thump, waaaaahhhhh!!!! Huh? Seems that Stephen crawled to the stairs (which, in my defense, is not very far away) and started to climb.... So, the safety gate is back up and mom has her baby-proofing goggles back on.